Friday, April 8, 2011

Brighton TUSC to fight the cuts at the ballot box!

The people have a real choice, a real alternative to vote for at the ballot box.

"There will be anger on the streets as people realise that the same people who created the UK financial crisis are still living in the lap of luxury while the rest of us are told to take the hit."

While the filthy rich attempt to escape any punishment for causing the economic crash that is being piled upon the innocent working class with job losses and vicious cuts to our public services, the words of Trade Unionists and Socialist Against Cuts (TUSC) supporter Bob Crow are turning into action.

On March 26 hundreds of thousands of trade unionists, socialists, pensioners, the unemployed, students and young people raised London in a giant demonstration with one voice calling for an alternative to this government's unjustified cuts agenda. And with May's local elections looming, anti-cuts campaigners have now launched a counter-attack at the ballot box to offer ordinary people the chance to vote for an opportunity to see justice rightfully served upon those who continue to steal our wealth we create through our work in private and public services, to fight for that wealth for the benefit of the millions instead of the billionaires.

With the Tories and Lib Dems leading the attack on our livelihoods and communities, the cowardly Labour Party once again turns its back on ordinary working people and the poor by allowing ideologically driven cuts budgets to lash out of council chambers across the country into the laps of our society's most vulnerable, the growing army of the abandoned unemployed and lowest paid.

In Brighton the Labour Party abstained in the recent budget vote allowing the Tories to continue with £23 million of cuts to children's services, housing services and transport all relied upon by ordinary people.

The Greens have no idea how to defend working people. They attempted to offer their own amendments and voted against the Tories budget, but have stated that they can see no alternative to making cuts if they are elected.

TUSC must show that councillors do have a choice, that they should set 'needs' budgets and demand the extra money that is currently being avoided in taxes owed by the rich or in bankers' bonuses, a figure approximately £120 billion each year – enough to wipe out the country's deficit in one go. In 1984, by following this strategy, the Militant-led Liverpool Labour Party council won £60 million from Thatcher's Tory government that was stronger than the current Con-Dem coalition.

The Trade Unionists and Socialist Against Cuts (TUSC) coalition of candidates and activists includes members from the Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition campaigners, the RMT trade union, Brighton Hove & District Trades Union Council, Brighton & Hove Unemployed Workers Centre, leading Defend Council Housing activists, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Resistance, along with hundreds of individuals determined to resist these attacks and build a genuine political voice for ordinary working class people.

TUSC is calling for anyone who is opposed to the cuts to support our socialist anti-cuts platform as candidates people can vote for in their community, who will resist all attempts to cut and privatise everything organised working people have fought so hard for in the past.

TUSC is standing working class anti-cuts candidates in Hollingdean and Stanmer, East Brighton, Moulsecoomb and Bevendean and Hanover wards.

Ward: Hollingdean and Stanmer
Candidates: Phil Clarke, Tony Greenstein and Dave Hill
Phil Clarke:
Phil is a local teacher and trade union activist who has been at the forefront of defending jobs and building the Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition.
As a Hollingdean resident Phil has been part of campaigns to stop the sell-off our council houses
and has stood alongside the unemployed workers centre’s Tony Greenstein in previous elections.
“Locally Labour allowed the Tories to pass a massive cuts budget - they think cuts should be carried out but slower. The Hollingdean Green candidates have admitted they will have to
vote through cuts if they lead the council. We need councillors who will vote against ALL cuts and support our unions defending jobs.”

Tony Greenstein:
Tony has been an advisor and co-ordinator at the Unemployed Workers Centre in Hollingdean for over a decade.
As a member of Unison, Tony has been vital in providing help for both workers and the unemployed in fighting the attacks on our hard won welfare support services, along with building the Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition in the local community.

Dave Hill:
Dave Hill is a trade union activist and university professor. He represented Stanmer ward for 10 years and served as governor of Coldean schools and of the University of Sussex. He has been active in supporting the victimised Sussex Six and students and staff at the universities fighting against redundancies.
Dave Hill is a former East Sussex Labour group leader, a former Brighton councillor and P
parliamentary candidate, who left Labour after 44 years disgusted by the way the party has turned against the working class and by its cuts policies. In 2010 he ran for parliament in Brighton for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
Brought up in poverty in Brighton, he founded the Brighton Campaign for Nursery Education and has fought all his life for the equality for working people, and against sexism, homophobia, and racism.

Ward: Moulsecoomb and Bevendean
Candidate: Dave Bangs
Dave Bangs is a gardener and ex-care worker. He co-led Defend Council Housing's successful campaign to stop council housing privatisation in Brighton.
Dave says: “We need a massive programme of new council housing, and we need rent controls and security of tenure to help students and all private tenants. I support making public transport free and creating a million green jobs to help stop disastrous climate change.”
Dave co-founded Keep Our Forests Public to stop privatisation of our forests. He co-led the successful campaigns to stop the privatisation of both Brighton and Worthing's council-owned downland.
Dave is a lifelong green activist and was a member of the Labour Party for 20 years until New Labour took over.
“All the other parties will vote for cuts budgets rather than fight unjust laws.”

Ward: East Brighton
Candidate: Bill North
Bill North is a local teacher and an active UCU member. He has been a pillar of the local labour movement in his role as current Brighton, Hove and District Trades Union Council general secretary.
Bill has been fighting the attacks to our jobs, public services and rights for decades, having been instrumental in the work of local anti-poll tax federation in the early 1990s to playing a guiding role in the creation of the Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition uniting all those fighting the cuts agendas of the other parties.

Ward: Hanover
Candidate: Jon Redford
Jon Redford is an organiser for the Socialist Party, originally from Crowborough. He is standing for the Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts for two reasons. First, the massive cuts agenda that faces every working and middle-class person in Britain - the cost of a crisis we did not cause while the culprits laugh all the way to the bank. Second, the lack of a fightback from any of the other main parties who either agree with the cuts or are failing to wage a serious fightback against them.
The cuts will devastate local communities and Brighton and Hove will be no exception. As a councillor Jon will campaign against every single cut to living and working conditions and push to build the strength of the anti-cuts movement with a fighting strategy to defeat the cuts and the coalition government.

Ends

For more information please call Jon on 07894 716095 or Peter on 07788 744120 or email peterdanielknight@hotmail.co.uk
Alternatively, please visit http://brightontusc.blogspot.com or http://www.tusc.org.uk

About Me

We believe that the function of socialists must be to support the self organisation of working people in their struggles against all forms of oppression, both at home and internationally.
We totally reject sectarianism, where one group puts its interests above that of the working class.
e.mail: socialistresistance.sussex@googlemail.com